At the same time, there is considerable linguistic diversity within Baltimore, which complicates the notion of a singular "Baltimore accent".[1] According to linguists, the accent of white blue-collar Baltimoreans is different from theAfrican-American Vernacular English accent of black Baltimoreans.[6] White working-class families who migrated out of Baltimore to the northwestern suburbs brought local pronunciations with them.
The Baltimore accent that originated amongwhiteblue-collar residents closely resembles blue-collarPhiladelphia-area English pronunciation in many ways. These two cities are the only major ports on theEastern Seaboard never to have developednon-rhotic speech among European American speakers; they were greatly influenced in their early development byHiberno-English,Scottish English, andWest Country English. Due to the significant similarity between the speeches of Baltimore, Philadelphia, Delaware and southern New Jersey,sociolinguists refer to them collectively as the Mid-Atlantic regional dialect.[7] In Baltimore accents, sounds around/r/ are often "smoothed" orelided. For example, a word likebureau is commonly pronounced/ˈbiroʊ/ (e.g.,FederalBeer-o of Investigation) andmirror is commonly pronounced/mir/ ("mere"); the relatedmare–mayor merger also exists.
Several vowels undergofronting./aʊ/ fronts to[ɛɔ] or[æɔ]./uː/ fronts to[ʉu].[8] Similarly,/oʊ/ shifts to[əʊ] or even[eʊ]. When word-final and spelled as-ow, it is pronounced like/ə/, resulting in colloquial or humorous spellings likepilla forpillow andwinda forwindow.
Nocot–caught merger: The wordscot/ɑ/ andcaught/ɔ/ do not rhyme, with the latter vowel maintaining a raised position. Likewise, the wordon rhymes withdawn and notdon.
As in Philadelphia, the wordwater is often pronounced aswooder[ˈwʊɾɚ] or, more uniquely,warter[ˈwɔɻɾɚ].
As in most Mid-Atlantic cities,shorta is pronounced with a phonemic split: for example, the wordsad/sæd/ does not rhyme with the wordmad/meəd/. Pronunciation is dependent upon a complex system of rules that differ from city to city.[9] Baltimore follows the Philadelphia pattern.[10] For more details on the Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore systems see/æ/ raising.
^abcdIn New York City and Philadelphia, most function words (am, can, had, etc.) and some learned or less common words (alas, carafe, lad, etc.) have[æ].[16]
^In Philadelphia, the irregular verbsbegan, ran, andswam have[æ].[17]
^In Philadelphia,bad, mad, andglad alone in this context have[ɛə].[16]
^abThe untensed/æ/ may be lowered and retracted as much as[ä] in varieties affected by theLow-Back-Merger Shift, mainly predominant in Canada and the American West.[24]
^In New York City, certain lexical exceptions exist (likeavenue being tense) and variability is common before/dʒ/ and/z/ as inimagine,magic, andjazz.[26] In New Orleans,[ɛə] additionally occurs before/v/ and/z/.[27]
The/ɑr/ vowel in words likestart is often raised and backed, resulting in a vowel close to/ɔ/. Likewise,/ɔr/ as inbore[dubious –discuss] can shift as high as/ʊr/ as inboor. This pattern has also been noted to occur in Philadelphia and New York.[28]
Canadian raising occurs for/aɪ/ before voiceless consonants, as in Philadelphia; for instance, the wordlike [ɫʌɪk] begins with a higher nucleus thanlive [ɫaɪv].[28]
On the other hand,/aɪ/ may undergosmoothing before liquids, becoming[ɑ] before/r/ and/l/; e.g.,fire is pronounced as[fɑɻ], in which a popular Baltimore Christmas joke: "Why were the Three Wise Men covered with soot?" "Because they came from afar."
[ə] is often eliminated entirely from a word when before a consonant; e.g. Annapolis = Naplis, cigarette = cigrette, company = compny, Italy = Itly.
Th–stopping occurs, where the dental fricatives/θ,ð/ may be realized as stops (/t,d/ respectively); for instance,this may sound more likediss.
L–vocalization is common at the end of a word. The sound/l/ is often replaced by the semivowel or glide[w] and/or[o] or[ʊ]. Pronunciation of words likemiddle andcollege become[ˈmɪdo] and[ˈkɑwɪdʒ] respectively.
Epenthetic/r/ often occurs; notably,wash is pronounced as[wɑɻʃ], popularly written aswarsh, andWashington is pronounced asWarshington.
As is common in many US dialects,/t/ is frequently elided after/n/, thushunter is pronounced[ˈhʌnɚ].
The following is a list of words and phrases used in the Baltimore area that are used much less or differently in other American English dialects.
down the ocean – (eye-dialect spellings includedayown the ocean ordowny ocean) "down to/on/at the ocean", oftenOcean City, Maryland.
hon – a popular term of endearment, short forhoney, often used at the end of a sentence. This word has been a popular marker of Baltimore culture, as represented in the annualHonfest summer festival and in landmarks such as the Hontown store and theCafé Hon restaurant.[29]
natty boh – local slang for the beer originally brewed in Baltimore,National Bohemian.
pavement (commonly pronounced "payment") – means "sidewalk."
went up (shortened from "went up to heaven") – commonly used when an appliance dies; e.g., our refrigerator went up
yo – as a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun[1][30]
African-American Baltimore English includes the wordsard for "alright",lor for "little",[31]rey forready (associated with Baltimore users ofBlack Twitter),[32] andwoe for a close friend.
According to linguists, the "hon" dialect that is popularized in the media and that derives historically from the speech ofwhiteblue-collar residents of South and SoutheastBaltimore is not the only accent spoken in the region. There is also a particular Baltimore accent found among Black Baltimoreans: a sub-type ofAfrican-American Vernacular English.[33]
For example, among Black speakers, Baltimore is pronounced more like "Baldamore"/ˌbɔldəˈmɔr/, as compared to "Bawlmer"/ˈbɔlmər/. Other notable phonological characteristics include vowel centralization before/r/ (such that words such as "carry" and "parents" are often pronounced as "curry" or "purrents", and "Aaron earned an iron urn" might sound like "Urrun urned an arn urn") and the mid-centralization of/ɑ/, particularly in the word "dog," often pronounced like "dug," and "frog" as "frug."[1][33]The African-American Baltimore accent, or a variation thereof, is also shared by many African Americans throughout Maryland and theWashington metropolitan area.
The films ofJohn Waters, many of which have been filmed in and around Baltimore, often attempt to capture the Baltimore accent, particularly the early films. For example, John Waters uses his own Baltimore accent in the commentary during his filmPink Flamingos.[43]John Travolta's character in the 2007 version of John Waters'sHairspray spoke with an exaggerated Baltimore accent. Likewise, several of the films ofBarry Levinson are set in and around Baltimore during the 1940s-1960s, and employ the Baltimore accent.Michael Tucker, whowas born and raised in Baltimore, speaks with a West Baltimore accent.
Television drama seriesHomicide: Life on the Street andThe Wire are both set in Baltimore and in some cases include actors who are native white and black Baltimoreans.[44] In the earlyHomicide: Life on the Street episode "Three Men and Adena", a suspect, Risley Tucker, describes how he can tell whereabouts in or around the city a person comes from simply by whether they pronounce the city's name as "Balti-maw", "Balti-moh", or "Bawl-mer".[45]
In Season 4, Episode 7 ofThe Tracey Ullman Show, Baltimore actorMichael Tucker portrays the father of Ullman's character JoJo. The skit is set in a Baltimore row house. Tucker advisesUllman to "take a Liverpool accent and Americanize it." The episode called "The Stoops" begins with Tracey washing her marble stoops, which are the most common small porches attached to most Baltimore town homes (called row houses in Baltimore).[46]
In the30 Rock episode, "I Do Do",Elizabeth Banks parodies the accent by portraying Avery Jessup, the spokesperson for the fictional Overshoppe.com in aflashback scene.[47]
Singer-songwriterMary Prankster uses several examples of Baltimore slang in her song, "Blue Skies Over Dundalk," from the album of the same name, including, "There'll be O's fans going downy ocean, hon."
Jason La Canfora, host of theB-More Opinionated[53] podcast with Jerry Coleman and resident ofDundalk, regularly discussed events of theNational Football League forThe Tony Kornheiser Show podcast and will end the segment plugging his own podcast in a heavy Baltimore accent. The accent is so distinct that his dog, Copper, will react to it, barking constantly because he knows it is time for a walk.
ComedianStavros Halkias (a native ofGreektown) was also known for performing an exaggerated version of a Baltimore accent on the podcastCum Town, when impersonating a typical citizen ofDundalk.[54][55]
^Jones, Taylor (2020). Variation in African American English: The great migration and regional differentiation (Doctoral dissertation), University of Pennsylvania, pp. 158, 239.
^Ash, Sharon. 2002. “The Distribution of a Phonemic Split in the Mid-Atlantic Region: Yet More on Short a.” In “Selected Papers from NWAV 30,” edited by Sudha Arunachalam, Elsi Kaiser, Daniel Ezra Johnson, Tara Sanchez, and Alexander Williams. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 8.3: 1–15. http:// repository.upenn.edu/pwpl/vol8/iss3/2.
^abLabov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2005).The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change. Mouton de Gruyter.ISBN978-3-11-020683-8.
^Rizzo, M. (2010). Hon-ouring the past: play-publics and gender at Baltimore's HonFest. International Journal Of Heritage Studies, 16(4-5), 337-351.
^Stotko, E. M., & Troyer, M. (2007). A new gender-neutral pronoun in Baltimore, Maryland: A preliminary study. American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage, 82(3), 262.
^Jones, T. (2015) Toward a description of African American Vernacular English dialect regions using “Black Twitter.” American Speech, 90(4): 403-440. doi:10.1215/00031283-3442117
Duncan, Daniel (2016)."'Tense' /æ/ is still lax: A phonotactics study"(PDF). In Hansson, Gunnar Ólafur; Farris-Trimble, Ashley; McMullin, Kevin; Pulleyblank, Douglas (eds.).Supplemental Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Meeting on Phonology. Vol. 3. Washington, D.C.: Linguistic Society of America.doi:10.3765/amp.v3i0.3653.
In March 2011, theVOA Special English service of theVoice of America broadcast a 15-minute feature on Bawlmerese, written and voiced by longtime VOA Special English announcer, photographer, voice-over artist, and Baltimore nativeSteve Ember. A transcript and MP3 of the program – intended for those want to learn American English – can be found atAn Extended Lesson in Bawlmerese
